Gennady Yanayev

Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev (26 August 1937-24 September 2010) was Vice President of the Soviet Union from 27 December 1990 to 21 August 1991 (succeeding Anatoly Lukyanov) and acting President from 19 to 21 August (interrupting Mikhail Gorbachev's terms).

Biography
Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev was born in Perevoz, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union in 1937, and he officially joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1962. He became involved with the Gorky Komsomol during the 1960s, rising to first secretary. In 1986, he became Secretary of International Affairs of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, and he became chairman in April 1990. In December of that year, he was appointed Vice President of the USSR under Mikhail Gorbachev, and he was known to be a conservative nonentity whose selection would satisfy the CPSU's right-wing. Shortly after taking office, however, Yanayev plotted with other hardline communists to declare a state of emergency and restore order to the seceding Soviet republics. He joined the State Committee of the State of Emergency, an eight-man committee which governed the country from 19 to 21 August 1991 during the "August Coup". However, the coup lacked popular support, and Yanayev was arrested along with the other coup leaders. In 1994, he was freed in a State Duma amnesty, and he died of lung cancer in 2010.